Salome Lemonjava

“Physical abuse due to sexual identification, conditions of the injured transgender woman are still crucial. She is still on artificial respiration.  Investigation has begun, although nobody has been detained” –says “Qronikanews”, TV channel “Imedi”.

It’s been several days that Georgian media makes similar anouncements. Sexual identification is one of the most widely discussed matters that majority of people in the one hand, approach aggressively and in the other hand, has minimum tolerance. Generally, topics connected with LGBT are unacceptable for the society. In my country Georgia gays often become victims of violence. Sometimes society is for protecting gay’s rights, but more often they act against them with their discriminative actions, taking away human’s rights. Both of those are considered as involvement, but one of them is positive involvement when the other is negative one, some count it as an advantage but some as a disadvantage…

All I can say about tolerance in general, is that being tolerant and respectful towards peoples different views and understanding it, is not only important thing but it’s one of the basics for modern humanity.  And realizing it means to be involved in a positive way.

Tolerance – seems easy to understand, easy to realize, easy to explain and from first look not so hard to achieve. In reality we often look at different religions, different culture, dissimilar outlook, sexual orientation or political views – simply different life style – indifferently, unacceptably or even aggressively.

Tolerance and Involvement – these are terms nowadays global society often talks about. Although apart from being just terms, those two have great importance in our everyday life. It has to be mentioned that they complement each other and one without the other loses its value. Tolerance becomes meaningful only when it’s shown in actions of you, others and me and doesn’t remain just a term. That action is called involvement.

When I see how the institution of virginity is actual topic in my country when Giorgi madly in love with Mariam refuses to marry her, as Mariam has had sexual relationship prior to him. When I see, not in the capital city, but in outside regions a girl who smokes can’t be taken seriously and is approached as a girl  just for fun. When I see that in my country similar problems exist and people leading such lifestyle are unacceptable for general society, it becomes important that each of us within their ability express protest and take into consideration to make the rest of the society understand and realize the meaning of tolerance. This is called positive involvement.  For instance,  the fact that I’m writing about this, pointing out and stating my opinion regarding understanding of tolerance. If my voice will effect at least two people after reading this article can lead to positive thinking isn’t this positive involvement? Indeed, it is.

Subject of tolerance is emphasized when politicians approach to their voters, Christians to Muslims, heterosexuals to homosexuals, ethnic group majorities to minorities and etc. most important for all these not to be formal words and be expressed in real actions but to stand out with positive involvement.

To cut a long story short, tolerance and involvement are the phrases and not only phrases, but actions as well that build foundation for country’s diversity. That is, multicultural, multireligious, political, social or demographic heterogeneity.

Salome Lemonjava

Read this article in Georgian here.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author, and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of ALDA and the European Union.